I'm tending towards something like that, largely because of the age of the European Venuses. On sea contact, here's an interesting note:
Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a wooden boat dating back at least 7,500 years in Xiaoshan City of east China's Zhejiang Province. . .The United Kingdom discovered a wooden oar used 7,500 years ago, but archaeologists failed to find any remnants of a boat. The dugout canoe, two meters long and 70 centimeters broad at its widest place with a 15-centimeter-deep hold, has two spiles, or wooden pegs, shaped like tree stumps on each side. Mao Zhaoxi, a professor in the History Department of Zhejiang University, said the discovery of the canoe will assist research on the history of boat-building in the Neolithic Age. According to Mao, a boat dating back about 5,000 years was excavated earlier this year in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The newly discovered canoe confirms that the country's boat-building history extends back an additional 2,500 years. . .The canoe excavation site, also known as the Kuahuqiao ruins, contains the most ancient neolithic cultural relics in Zhejiang. Over the past decade, numerous pieces of precious pottery, stoneware and jade articles dating back 7,000 to 8,000 years have been discovered there.
BTW, I found this while I was looking up that other stuff--is this the same controversial find we were discussing before that some researchers had argued was natural rather than manmade, or is it a different find?
The Ryukyuan Submerged Landforms of the Late Quaternary: Possible Cultural Context and Significance
Aren't these the structures that were declared to be natural by Dr Robert Schoch (Geologist/Geophysist)?
That's a good article. I may post it as a stand-alone article.
"The pottery is basically a brownish grey cord-marked ware which has a wide distribution in the Western Pacific, but similar "Jomon" artistic examples have extended as far as Peru."
Could these be our drug dealers? LOL.